My Life
by Snow Tigra
Summary: Sasuke has found the perfect place to move into the summer before his senior year in college. But there's a name hidden under the wallpaper in the bedroom, and the house isn't exactly his.
1. Chapter 1

Title: My Life  
Author: Snow Tigra  
Series: Naruto  
Rating: R  
Pairing: SasukexNaruto  
Summary: Sasuke has found the perfect place to move into the summer before his senior year in college. But there's a name hidden under the wallpaper in the bedroom, and the house isn't exactly his.  
Warnings: AU

My Life

The story starts with a small little house. It's the house you would find on any college campus. The house which was dwarfed, hidden and tucked between countless others where multiple additions looked like they'd been dropped in and attached with little more then duct tape, to make room and hopefully a little extra money by being rented out to students. This was the only house on the block which was one floor, the only house which hadn't been touched.

In truth it was little more then a one room apartment. There was a bedroom of modest size, attached by one door to a closet that had been converted into a bathroom somewhere along the line, and attached to a small living room by another door. From the living room you could reach the kitchen and from the kitchen you could wander down the concrete stairs to a basement that served little more purpose then a laundry room with a crawl space for pipes and room for a single small shelf. There wasn't much else space to speak of, though many windows and the light colors made it look larger then it really was.

Somehow this house had escaped being renovated or knocked down and was now for rent, as no real family could ever hope to live in such a small space. For a student just stepping out of his junior year of college with a summer to spare, it was perfect. It was even moderately priced so that a roommate wasn't needed and it could be paid for on a decent summer job which lasted in between studies and classes during the school year.

Moving in brought in a couch, tv and stereo system, all mismatching colors. The bedroom became home to a bed without a frame, as there was little interest in wasting money to buy one, and a computer on a card table instead of a desk. Another card table and two mismatched chairs became the kitchen furniture and a small shelf was squeezed in downstairs, clothes tucked in whatever closet space could be found. Books tucked onto shelves and small piles by the desk, blankets on the bed and food to fill the cupboards.

And that was it. The house now was a home.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: My Life  
Author: Snow Tigra  
Series: Naruto  
Rating: R  
Pairing: SasukexNaruto  
Summary: Sasuke has found the perfect place to move into the summer before his senior year in college. But there's a name hidden under the wallpaper in the bedroom, and the house isn't exactly his.  
Warnings: AU

Chapter 1

Gaara hefted the box up with both arms, lifting it easily in spite of his small frame and thin build, which was mostly covered in variations of black and fishnet. He didn't look like the type to be moving heavy boxes and seemed more suited to sitting in front of the computer with some complicated computer program or addictive massive role playing game. He didn't seem like the type to be helping his friends move in, especially when him and Sasuke were so different in personality. But then, that certainly didn't mean he couldn't.

The moving job was almost done and all that they had left now were a scattered few cluttered boxes which had been tossed in the back of Sasuke's older brother's car which they'd borrowed for the job. Balancing the box for a moment with one arm, Gaara pushed open the door and moved in to set it on the couch, looking around the small place.

"Sure you still don't want a roommate?"

Sasuke shook his head from where he was unpacking his book box, placing them in a random order on a large bookshelf they'd assembled in the living room. "This place doesn't have room for two people, it'd be like living in the dorms again."

Gaara glanced around the room and crossed his arms. "A dorm with a living room, a separate kitchen, a washer and dryer that don't require quarters, working heat-"

"Ok, ok, I get the point. My answer is still no." Sasuke stepped down off the chair and smirked at his friend. "Sorry, you'll just have to live with your new roommate," he said with a shrug, heading with another box into the bedroom.

"Or I could kill him to get a single." Gaara followed Sasuke into the bedroom, watching him unpack random items. Sasuke's room was entirely too bright for his taste, with stark white walls and a light wood desk with a white computer. Didn't he know all computers these days were black? And they looked better too. At least in the dorm room Gaara had been able to convince him to cover the majority of the walls, but now the place looked doomed to stay white and boring. If this is what apartments looked like after college Gaara was tempted to never leave… but then that meant having to deal with roommates. He'd been lucky with Sasuke. He wasn't going to get that lucky again.

"Don't kill him Gaara."

"Why not? No one would notice. He's more introverted then me and I swear all he talks about is how this is too troublesome and that is too troublesome. He just lays in bed and reads or he's sleeping or he's out. I already don't like him."

"Well, then it's just like having a single if he's gone all the time."

Gaara rolled his eyes and just decided to give up, there were some things that a popular boy like Sasuke just wouldn't understand. For instance, the need that Gaara had to have a single room in his senior year during the summer, but no, he just had to have a new roommate. And with this being a college town if one didn't drink or dance or study there was no where else you could go. There were computers in the library but the silence drove him up the wall and would only make him more irritable.

"The last box is on the couch. I think I'm gonna take a long walk back."

Sasuke nodded, still a bit distracted. "I'll call you tomorrow, once the phone is hooked up."

A wave and Gaara was gone, leaving Sasuke to unpack in his new place, alone.

Packing always takes longer then one thinks and in most cases the majority of people have no idea how much 'crap' they have until they attempt to pack it into boxes or unpack it into a new home where not everything has had years to find their own little nooks and crannies. In Sasuke's case, even after shaving off what he could and selling it at the local pawn shop, he still found himself with a living room full of boxes to unpack in spite of spending the entire afternoon doing exactly that.

His food was put away, creating a sad small variety of college delicacies pretty much equaling a shelf of ramen and a fridge of soda and sandwich meat. He badly needed a trip to the grocery store, but that would need to wait until he knew what else he needed for the place. He only had Itachi's car for so long and chances were he wouldn't be able to get it again any time soon without major begging.

Sasuke took a break from unpacking and laid down on his bed, giving himself a moment to relax. Outside the sun was setting and he could hear the college student population of the town filtering out to the various bars that lined the street. His house seemed peaceful with the lack of dorm noise and Sasuke actually found himself smiling just a little as he closed his eyes. It didn't seem like it'd take long at all for this place to feel like home.

He hadn't planned on taking a nap, or even sleeping at all. But when Sasuke opened his eyes again the room was dark and none of his lights were turned on, leaving the world around him bathed in lines of moonlight from his window, washing out all color from the scattered half unpacked items. Standing up he stumbled over and made his way to the light, trying not to trip in his blindness. Sliding his hand across the wall he met with what felt like curled paper, then found the light switch and flicked it on.

A light buzzing filled the room and the light flickered to life, flooding the room around him and momentarily blinding him. Sasuke blinked until his eyes focused, then glanced at the wall.

"Great, just great." He hadn't remembered any peeling wallpaper when he'd began moving in and he wasn't too keen on the idea of paying for repairs or bothering management to get of their own asses and do it.

Still, now that he looked right by the light, a small corner of the plain paper on the wall had curled away to reveal the worn sheetrock beneath. And there was a small scratch, almost resembling a letter. Sasuke blinked and grasped the paper lightly, slowly pulling it back.

"Naruto. Naruto?"

The paper peeled away easily, revealing what appeared to be a name scrawled in a slightly shaky permanent marker that could have been a signature, maybe. Sasuke knew nothing about dating, but the signature looked old and it was smudged in one corner probably from the paper being peeled back or applied over it.

Sasuke shrugged. "Probably just some previous owner…" he glanced at the boxes around the room. He knew he should do more unpacking since he hadn't planned on actually napping, but he just didn't feel motivated now. His mind was still mostly wrapped in the comfortable blanket of sleep and the only thing he wanted to consider at the moment was climbing back into bed and under the blankets until the sunlight demanded he do more work. Apparently, even in an apartment of his own, he couldn't shake the college sleep mentality.

Turning back to his bed to climb in and do exactly as his thoughts dictated he found something interesting in his way.

Sitting on his bed, where his head had been resting on the pillow, was a single subject notebook. It was one of those expensive notebooks with the sewn binding and thick cardboard covers that looked more like a journal then something that would be used in classes. Either way they were spendy and only the pickiest of students used them for college classes, and that certainly wasn't Sasuke.

So how did this get here?

Opening the notebook didn't really provide any clues either, though there was also a name scrawled in the front cover.

Naruto.

Sasuke frowned and sat down on the bed, looking at the notebook. He knew it wasn't his but honestly had no idea how it'd gotten there. The only thing he could possibly think of was that it was some joke of Gaara's to freak him out of his new place and back into being his roommate. And while that seemed like something Gaara might do, Sasuke couldn't honestly figure out how he would have managed to make the notebook appear, especially since all the windows were closed and Sasuke was the only one in the house.

Still, it was a journal and it just didn't seem right for a journal to be sitting on his bed, completely blank without some writing in it.

Rolling over in bed, Sasuke retrieved a pen from his bedside table and started to write.

_Naruto._

_Who is Naruto?_

_This notebook appeared in my house in the middle of the night. I've just moved in and still haven't finished unpacking yet, and this appears in front of me. No, it appeared after I found something else. I'd woken up, from accidentally dozing off, to find the lights off and I went searching for the light switch. My hand brushed against the wallpaper to find it peeling away, and under it was that name._

_Naruto._

_Who is Naruto?_

_Was he a boy who lived here before me? Another student? Or did his family rent the place and somehow manage to live with more then one person is such a small place? Or perhaps he was a student who spent one drunken night breaking in through the loose lock in the back and decided to leave his mark on the wall and a notebook hidden for someone else to find._

_What does he look like? Where does he come from?_

"Why am I so sure it's a he?" Sasuke stopped and just looked at what he'd written. He'd just been rambling and yet he was already close to filling a page of the notebook with nonsensical letters and sentences. What was the good of asking a note book any questions? There was no point. Books like you saw in the movies that wrote the answers back to you didn't exist in real life, so he was basically wasting time. Sasuke closed the notebook and set it on the bedside table.

He'd figure it out tomorrow, but for right now he was too tired to really think about much else. Unpacking, returning Itachi's car and straightening everything out in his new place would all have to happen later.

He could worry about some strange name and notebook later when he had free time.

Sasuke rolled over in his half-made bed and closed his eyes, drifting off back asleep without ever thinking about the fact that the light was still buzzing quietly above him. But then, it wasn't all night. Because soon after he'd closed his eyes and slipped off to sleep, the light snapped off of its own accord.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: My Life  
Author: Snow Tigra  
Series: Naruto  
Rating: R  
Pairing: SasukexNaruto  
Summary: Sasuke has found the perfect place to move into the summer before his senior year in college. But there's a name hidden under the wallpaper in the bedroom, and the house isn't exactly his.  
Warnings: AU 

_Naruto is a younger boy, one who had recently just started college away from home._

_Naruto isn't nearly as young as he looks, but he has a habit of not combing his hair and smiling brightly while closing his eyes, making him look much younger then he really is. He laughs off problems, always seems energetic and is always eager to help and work with others, also making him seem a lot younger then he really is._

_In college everyone saw him as a child. The boy who didn't fit in, and was too nice. Too sweet. Too young. The annoying one. The one they all left alone._

_Naruto is alone at college, attending by the money from the state. Naruto doesn't have any parents that write to him, that call him at night or that come and visit him on weekends. He doesn't have parents harping on him to do his homework, or to not party, or to do good in his classes so he can get a good job after college. Naruto doesn't have anyone telling him what to do… so the things that most college students do to get attention don't really interesting him._

_Naruto lives alone in a small little house, hidden between a large Victorian home torn apart from years of frat-house use and a little grocery store that also carries textbooks at a slightly lower prices then the official ones. Naruto lives alone in a one bedroom house, with just a living room and a kitchen and a small compartment downstairs._

_Naruto is lonely._

Sasuke jumped, his pen slipping out of his hand as the doorbell rang. Dorms didn't have doorbells, but then he wasn't in a dorm anymore, and his mind seemed to still be processing that fact. He glanced at the notebook and the words he'd written with a small frown, then stood up to answer the door.

"I'm here to hook up the phone and internet?" The woman at the door popped her gum and nodded toward the phone jack which she could just barely see through the maze of still unpacked boxes. Sasuke nodded and stepped aside letting her in without any other destraction. She went to work right away, and Sasuke was left standing at the door looking back at his apartment.

It was nearly noon and still he hadn't unpacked any boxes from the night before. Everything was still waiting for his attention and for him to put it all away in its proper place… and instead all he could think about was that notebook.

He'd woken up like he still expected to go to class, even though it was the summer, and had rolled over right for the note book without thinking about it. Sasuke remembered he'd spent a couple of minutes looking over the words he'd written the night before, then he'd gone to take a shower to start out the day of unpacking.

It was in the shower that he'd been given an idea, something that never should have occurred to him. In fact, it wasn't even in his character at all since aside from home work he'd never done much writing in his life. But he just couldn't get that name out of his head, and the less he tried to think about it, the more it seemed to echo in his mind, as if begging him for more attention.

In the shower he'd gotten the crazy idea to start writing about Naruto.

Now, since he knew nothing about the boy who'd had this name – and yes, he was still completely convinced it was a boy – there was no way he could write down what had really happened to the boy. So instead he let it flow from his mind and pen onto the piece of paper, making up the story as he went. Sasuke had never tried to write fiction, had never had such a desire to do so, but this… this just felt right.

So he'd sat down and started writing and not really thought about anything else.

Sasuke wandered back over to the notebook and picked it up, looking at the pages he'd written. His hand writing wasn't very neat, but it was large so it wasn't hard to read, a trick he'd learned in college for making his assignments seem longer and also so the teachers wouldn't harp him about not being able to read the things they'd assigned to be hand written. That combined with the wide ruled lines and he'd already managed to fill a couple pages with rambling sentences attempting to capture wandering thoughts. Thanks to the writing and constant thinking on the subject he now had an idea of what Naruto might have looked like, well at least he did if the Naruto who'd written his name on the wall matched his story at all. In reality he had no idea… he'd just started writing.

"You got a phone?"

Sasuke blinked and looked up at the girl who was now standing in his house. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this… detached.

"Yeah, just a second." He dropped the notebook on the couch and opened one of the boxes, pulling out a phone which he handed to her to test out the line. Her bubblegum popped again and for the moment the room was filled with a sweet and almost sickening smell along with the echo of the sound. Sasuke's eyes wandered over the still packed boxes and he felt his mind wandering back to the notebook now sitting on his couch.

"Well, it's up and running You don't have your computer set up completely yet, so just give us a call if it doesn't work when you get it plugged in."

Sasuke nodded his understanding and didn't say anything else as she picked up her bag and slipped a few tools back into her belt, then she was out the door and gone, the only sound left behind was a small echo of her gum popping through the empty house.

He just stood there, staring at the boxes in the room. A strange feeling of complete detachment filled Sasuke and for a moment he felt like he was staring at a completely unfamiliar space, full of objects that he couldn't for the life of himself name or even recognize. The world around him felt thick and unclear, clouded, and the only thing that seemed to make any sense were the strange sentences he'd been writing in the notebook which he was now reaching for…

Sasuke stopped himself and shook his head, attempting to clear out the cloudyness. What was he doing? He had to unpack and he had to return his brothers' car… and he had too many things to do to be sitting down and writing in some weird notebook about some person who probably never even existed. He only had a couple days to move in before his summer job started and he didn't have time to waste them, so what the heck was he doing just standing there?

A moment later and the atmosphere had completely changed in the apartment. The first thing Sasuke did was plug in his stereo and throw in a cd, using the music to chase away the strange things he'd been feeling and any deep important thoughts. Then he finally began unpacking the boxes, leaving the notebook mostly forgotten, sitting on the couch, open to the page he'd left it on.

_(later...)_

_Naruto is lonely._

The knock on the door sounded for the fifth time and Sasuke glanced over toward the door, or rather, he meant to, but his eyes only made it as far as the couch and the notebook. The front door was forgotten when his eyes met the black and white covered pages with the thin blue lines. He was standing across the room, but he knew what the last line on the page was as if he could read it from far away.

_Naruto is lonely._

Another knock and Sasuke jumped, wincing as the cds slipped out of his hand and clattered to the floor. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, stepping around one of then few boxes left to the door.

He found Gaara leaning against his door frame, dressed in a loose pair of black pants that seemed to have more belt buckles then actual fabric. A mesh black top hinted to what should have been a shirt, but never really passed for one beyond college and goth shops in town and eyeliner made him look eternally tierd, or like some pissed off zombie boy who'd walked off the movie screen. Gaara glanced up at Sasuke with a disinterested look.

"Itachi called."

Sasuke blinked. "My brother called you?"

"Well, he tried calling you, but someone isn't answering their phone. Looks like it's hooked up though… your answering machine is blinking."

Sasuke turned to look back at his answering machine to find that indeed it was blinking from a missed message. "Guess I was… in the basement…"

Gaara didn't respond and stepped past Sasuke into the apartment, glancing around. His eyes were greeted with the sight of only half the boxes being unpacked and only a handful of Sasuke's stuff seemed to be put away in the rightful places. What had Sasuke been doing for the entire night and morning? It just wasn't like Sasuke at all to slack off on anything.

When Sasuke had first moved in with Gaara as his roommate, Gaara had hated him instantly. Sasuke was the type that Gaara's type couldn't stand. He was popular, he was considered boy-band attractive and he was the dream boy that any parent would love their daughter to bring home thanks to his smile and his perfection. He always did his homework with perfect grades and didn't have a single disrespectful hobby under his belt which could be used again him. He didn't even sleep around like most in his category, he was just sickeningly perfect and Gaara couldn't stand it. It had taken months for Gaara to finally admit that Sasuke wasn't quite so bad and for them to actually start talking more then the usually 'morning' and 'night' and simple little words that couldn't even be called communication. Finally Gaara was forced to admit that Sasuke was pretty likeable… of course it helped that Sasuke didn't pester him or seem to look down on him at all, which was something Gaara just wasn't used to.

They'd made it through those years as equals and with a form of respect. But now, Sasuke seemed to be changing.

"Seems like my bad habits are rubbing off, finally," Gaara said with a smirk. "You're slacking, Uchiha. You're actually being lazy."

"I just got… destracted." Sasuke pressed the delete button as soon as his brother's deeper voice came through the speaker, erasing the only message.

Gaara crossed his arms. "Hmph. You're still destracted."

Sasuke blinked and looked up at him. "What?"

And Gaara couldn't help but smirk. "Point proven. You know, at this point you're never going to get moved in. What exactly were you doing all night any way?"

"I fell asleep…. Oh, and I found something in the bedroom."

"Do I really want to know what you found in the bedroom from a previous occupant?" Gaara's tone turned to a wary note, but he followed Sasuke into the bedroom anyway, weaving his way around the boxes until they reached the room. He watched as Sasuke's hand slid over the wall by the light switch for a moment, searching for something.

"The wallpaper was peeling last night, and there's a name behind it."

"Looks fine now."

Sasuke's brows furled and he scratched a bit at the edge of the wallpaper, but nothing moved for him. "There was a notebook and the name on the wall. I started writing in it…"

He'd remembered seeing a notebook in the living room, so Gaara wound his way back through the maze and grabbed it, flipping through the pages. "I didn't know you could write when homework wasn't involved." He scanned the pages a bit, actually quite surprised about the length of the writing, though he didn't really show it. "Who is Naruto?"

"It was the name under the wallpaper… I don't get it. Why doesn't it peel away like before?"

"Sasuke, you just moved into a new place. I'll believe you on the name, but don't be stupid enough to start tearing the place apart unless you throw a drunk party to have a good excuse for it." He handed him the notebook. "Anyway, it's weird, but then I'm not much for fiction. You've still got a lot of unpacking and probably don't want to deal with Itachi. Give me the keys and I'll go drop off the car for you."

"Yeah, I guess." Sasuke's eyes stayed on the wall for a long moment, frowning at the spot where the wallpaper seemed perfectly glued to the wall. Finally, after hearing Gaara clear his throat, he pulled the keys out of his pocket and handed them to him.

"Good, I'll go do that and head back home. You should take a walk and go buy some caffeine, you're spacing too much. You look more destracted then my annoying roomie."

Sasuke smirked. "And how is the so-called 'roommate from hell'? Does he even have a name yet?" He still looked mostly destracted, but Gaara let the mood slide because he could tell Sasuke was trying to cover it up and he wasn't one usually to push.

"Shika- something or other. It's this long annoying name."

"Is anything about him not annoying to you?"

Gaara thought for a moment as Sasuke passed him, stepping out of the room, but not letting go of the notebook. "No." He said after hesitation. "He's still all around annoying."

"Well… have fun then."

Gaara shrugged and headed for the door. "You better call me tomorrow, got it?"

"I will."

"Yeah…" he muttered. "You said that yesterday." Gaara glanced back at Sasuke for a moment, then finally left the small house, not worrying anymore. He was never one to push and Sasuke could take care of himself easily enough.

Still…. Naruto?

What kind of a name was that?


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3 

_Naruto is lonely._

Moon light shone through the window, crisscrossing the bed room in rays of light as it squeezed through the cracks in the blinding. Sasuke's room was covered in what looked like a misty light, illuminating everything just enough so it seemed like it all had a light glow, coming alive like objects in some fantasy movie covered with fairy dust. But nothing in the room really moved, except Sasuke.

_Naruto is lonely._

In fact, Sasuke couldn't stop moving. His eyes were closed and his breathing wasn't anywhere close to even as he tossed and turned in bed, rolling from one side to the other. Several times he came dangerously close to rolling out of the bed, which was thankfully not propped up off the floor. His blankets had long since been discarded from the jerking movements and he was left in a simple pair of boxers and a tank top, sweating from head to toe as he clutched at his pillow like a life line. It was almost as if he were falling, and the pillow was the last life line he had above a bottomless abyss.

_Naruto is lonely._

The room itself seemed to be watching Sasuke as his face contorted in a worried expression and he clutched tighter at the pillow, threatening to tear it to pieces if it would help. Everything in the room remained still and back in the far corner of the room he watched Sasuke move back and forth, watching him wrestle in his sleep with whatever was haunting him.

_I am lonely._

Sasuke's eyes snapped open and he sat up in bed, gasping for air. The room around him was silent and for a moment he stared with wide eyes at the wall before him, before the tension slipped from his body and he relaxed, panting softly to catch his breath. Leaning over he held his head in his hands, brushing away the sweat covering his face. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had such a nightmare, and even worse now that he was awake he couldn't even remember what the nightmare was about. All he could remember was that he'd been trapped in it, until something had woken him up.

A voice. A voice had woken him.

Sasuke glanced up around the room and slowly passed over the various contents. Nothing had moved and nothing had changed since he'd gone to sleep. But then, that should have gone without saying as he was the only one who lived in this new place and only the landlord had the other key.

"I must not be used to living alone."

Another glance around the room and Sasuke steeled himself to relax, laying back in the bed. He just needed more sleep and tomorrow he needed to get out of the house, that would probably help him relax. He just needed a break, that's all. Sasuke nodded to himself and closed his eyes. Yeah, that had to be it.

With his eyes closed and his mind set back on sleeping, Sasuke relaxed in the bed and rolled onto his back to try and be more comfortable. He wasn't hearing voices, he was just tired and exhausted… and that notebook was creeping him out.

Below him, from the basement, the water heater chugged to life, creating a low thudding sound that seemed to lull Sasuke closer to sleep. It was constant and low, barely able to be heard, the perfect sound to listen to as sleep crept up upon a person, slowly sliding over the body and covering them in relaxing darkness.

Sasuke's mind began to drift into sleep, consciousness melting away to nothingness, when he felt a cold breeze flow over his body. Somewhere in the back of his sleep fuzzed mind he knew it wasn't possible for cold air to touch him like that, since he was wrapped in a blanket and clothes, but he was too close to sleep to move and see what it was. It was unimportant, he was just eagerly waiting unconsciousness, his entire body feeling heavy and just assumed the odd feeling would pass.

The cold air faded away, but it didn't leave him alone. Instead Sasuke felt a weight settle over his body, laying against him with the pressure of perhaps another quilt which had just appeared on top of him. Cold filled his body, seeping through the blankets like water, covering him to the point that he began to shiver and somewhere in the room he heard a breath being drawn in… that wasn't his own.

Sasuke's eyes snapped open again and he jerked back in the bed, hard enough for his head to hit the back wall as he pressed his back against it. The room shattered into dots of moonlight from the hit, then slowly faded back into focus as he blinked his eyes and rubbed his head.

"… what the hell?"

Sasuke looked around the room, now nowhere near sleep and completely awake with his own fear. He knew he'd felt something that time and it certainly wasn't his mind letting some dream vision seem to leak into reality. That had felt real. For a moment something had been on top of him, he was sure of it. And as he looked around the room… he saw it.

It was crouched at the edge of his bed, in the corner like some twisted animal, or a demonic gargoyle waiting to pounce. It's back legs were curled, sitting up on it's front legs with claws of deep red curling out from its fingers into the carpet, that could be easily seen in the moon light. A evil looking grinning mouth showed many teeth, so white they almost matched the paleness of it's skin and three long red bleeding cuts were sliced over each cheek, the droplets slowly sliding down to his chin to look like some macabre version of tears coming from his dead blood stained eyes.

Only after looking at the thing for a long moment did Sasuke realize that it wasn't a creature at all, nor was it some kind of demon which had crawled out of hell to sneak into his room, but instead it was a boy. The clouds of fear seemed to fade slightly from his mind and then the boy's features weren't quite so exaggerated.

He was blond, or had been at one time. His hair now was matted with blood stains, looking almost dyed with it unevenly around his entire head. There were indeed cuts across his pale thin cheeks and the grin on his face really seemed to be the only menacing thing about him. The rest of him was human, dressed in clothes stained much like his hair with blood that dripped into the carpet and soaked it very slowly, showing Sasuke that the … thing in front of him wasn't anything but real.

Sasuke slowly looked down at the blanket now lying forgotten between them to find blood staining the sheets. The thing across the room had been on top of him. And when he looked up he only had to glance again to find that oddly the notebook was sitting between them, as if it were some sort of flimsy wall… or perhaps not even a wall at all.

The boy across the room was breathing much like any other boy would had he been living, but his paper pale skin seemed to contradict that image, leaving Sasuke to really wonder if he was alive or not. He didn't even try to figure how the boy had appeared in his room, because there was no possible way he could have.

It was then that the boy did the worst possible thing he could do.

He moved forward.

Blood spread out under his fingers, staining the carpet more and soaking into what used to be perfectly clean white sheets to splotch them in deep red that filled the room with a coppery smell. Sasuke inched back on the bed, trying to press himself tighter against the wall, as if he could slip through it if he tried hard enough, his eyes never leaving the thing crawling toward him. He couldn't think and he could barely breathe, all he could do was stare at the boy who barely passed for a boy. Stare into those watery blue eyes stained with blood red swirls.

The thing moved closer to him, crawling over the notebook and smearing blood across the pages and the sheets. As he drew closer Sasuke could see numerous cuts over his body, all of them bleeding much like the ones on his face. Did the human body really hold that much blood? Was it possible for someone to bleed so much? Shouldn't he have been dead in a couple steps?

Wasn't he dead already?

A sick feeling rose in Sasuke's stomach and his breathes grew quicker, him mind seizing up. He felt himself slipping into a panic, short gasps desperately escaping his throat and making the sickening smell only seem worse. The room grew hot and burning, black dots teasing at the edge of his sight, as if laughing at him. He felt his body begin to shake as the boy drew closer, almost touching him.

The bloody grin filled his vision, watery blue eyes focusing on his face. Then the mouth moved and in the distance he could hear the boy speak.

But Sasuke was already gone, slumping against the wall as the consciousness rushed out of him in a desperate wish of escape.


	5. Chapter 5

Title: My Life  
Author: Snow Tigra  
Series: Naruto  
Rating: R  
Pairing: SasukexNaruto  
Summary: Sasuke has found the perfect place to move into the summer  
before his senior year in college. But there's a name hidden under  
the wallpaper in the bedroom, and the house isn't exactly his.  
Warnings: AU

Chapter 4

The next morning - as soon as the buses were running and would allow him - found Sasuke standing at the darkest red door on the block. He stood in front of the one door in the small suburban neighborhood that stood out like a sore thumb, making it clear to everyone that his house was different, even if the rest of the two story house seemed to blend in perfectly with the white picket fences and two-car garages that filled the street.

He didn't bother to knock and instead pulled out one of his own keys, opening the door and stepping inside. A scattered few lights were on and different items were scattered about giving the place a lived-in look in an attempt to hide the fact that it was mostly a show house.

The place belonged to Sasuke's older brother, Itachi, with whom he shared a rather unusual relationship. Had anyone asked either of them what exactly they thought of each other they would have sworn up and down that they hated each other and wouldn't even blink at being asked to prove it. Any eye contact was only met with glaring between them and talking to each other was done in the least amount of words possible, in the shortest periods of time that existed. Still, they were brothers. Sasuke had been given a key to Itachi's place as soon as he'd moved in, without a word and both had accepted it without protest. Just as Sasuke had been able to borrow Itachi's car to move with little more then a questioning look and a nod. The two had a sort of diplomatic truce between them that really made people like Gaara wonder if the hatred was all an act that had just gone a little too far and now couldn't be stopped.

Sasuke crossed the house to the kitchen and grabbed himself a glass of water, then seated himself in the living room, holding it in his hands. A moment of staring at the glass and he laid down, setting it on the table and just staring at the clear liquid, trying to forget what he'd seen.

The image of the boy-thing was still vividly clear in his head. So vivid he could almost smell the blood in the air and feel the sticky warmth of it on his skin where it had been smeared. He'd managed to rub most of it off on the bus in a small panic and now it was all gone, but he swore he could still feel it.

What the hell had that been?

_Naruto._

Was that thing he'd seen in his room the one who the name belonged to? He was actually almost positive it was. As cliché as it sounded, the fact that the book had been sitting out like that between them almost made it look like he'd been summoned through the notebook.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and rolled over on the couch, looking up at the ceiling. How stupid did that sound? Yes, he'd moved into a new house for the summer and he'd used a notebook to summon some bloody ghost, literally, into his room to haunt him. No one would believe that story, not even the girls at school who seemed to hang on his every word whether he was talking or reciting from the dictionary. No one would believe that, hell he wouldn't have even believed it.

In the hallway, beyond the living room, the door opened and Itachi stepped out, wearing a simple pair of black jeans and a black bathrobe which had a red lining with odd white clouds all over it. On anyone else it would have looked silly, but it just seemed to fit Itachi. Sasuke's older brother looked exactly like that, an older version of Sasuke. The biggest differences between them were that Itachi seemed to have permanent bags under his eyes in two creases from working late and sleeping only a few hours when his work let him. It gave him a bored look and an almost threatening expression, which meant that people talking to him got right to the point and didn't bother him any more then that, just the way he liked it. He wore his hair long in the back, clasped together in a thin pony tail down his back and somehow still managed to look professional when the occasion required it. He was one of those perpetually busy people, who always got the job done, but usually by scaring others into working much faster.

Itachi didn't even spare a glance at his younger brother as he crossed to the kitchen, to make sort of semblance to breakfast. Sasuke could hear cupboard drawers opening and closing in an otherwise silent kitchen, as if a ghost were moving around. After waiting a long moment he forced himself to stand up and walk into the kitchen. He stopped by the door and leaned against the frame, just watching his brother and the tension between them.

How exactly did you talk to a sibling about something like this when you weren't used to talking to him at all about anything?

Itachi had apparently decided on leftovers for breakfast, leaning against the counter as he ate the food with a fork, not even bothering to warm it up. In spite of the house and in spite of the job and seemingly professional appearance, there were some areas where Itachi was still a bachelor in a carefully crafted disguise.

"Don't like your new house?"

Sasuke blinked in surprise at his brother speaking, then nodded a bit hesitantly.

"You can't live with me."

Sasuke frowned and crossed his arms. "Wouldn't want to. Just taking a break from unpacking. I suppose you want your spare key back then."

Itachi waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, sending the topic out the door. So it apparently wasn't important at all, just part of the game of pushing each other's buttons. "It bug you that much? It's just a house."

"Never mind, I don't want to talk about it." There wasn't even a point of talking about it with his brother. It would only earn him something else that Itachi would mercilessly bother him about, being afraid of ghosts, or being insane. Neither thing seemed worth explaining to his brother what he'd seen so he kept his mouth shut. It just wasn't worth it.

Itachi snorted and shrugged, putting his dishes in the sink to wash later. "Eat something, you look pale. I'm going back to work." And with those words he left the room.

A strange feeling of calm crossed Sasuke's mind as his brother left the room and he felt himself relaxing the most he had in the last week with all the packing and unpacking and moving in and ghost seeing. Itachi never changed. He was still an insensitive asshole and never seemed to pay his brother any heed other then to nod to his presence and try to piss him off. But somewhere behind all of that, the normalcy of it brought a strange sort of comfort.

Itachi had never changed. He would never change. Maybe that's what Sasuke had needed after last night's scare.

Moving over to the fridge he grabbed a can of soda to drink and an apple to eat, then he left the house without saying another word to his brother, finally ok with going back to the house.

(later)

The house was exactly as he'd left it. Nothing was changed about it when Sasuke arrived back and he entered it without hesitation, though his steps were just a touch slower then usual. Without even glancing at his bedroom, he set the half finished can of pop on the shelf and went about finishing unpacking, his eyes avoiding the bedroom as if it didn't even exist.

Ok, so maybe he wasn't as calm as he seemed.

Balancing books in both his hands and arranging them on the large book shelf, Sasuke reached over and hit the blinking button on the message machine to listen to the note left there. He wasn't surprised when he heard Gaara's voice.

"Uchiha. I need to get out of this room or I will kill him. Some annoying girl friend of his stopped by today. She wouldn't stop talking and I swear I was planning to kill her right there, her and her annoying bubblegum-"

"You know, in jail you'd have a roommate too." Sasuke said to the machine as if he were actually talking to Gaara, while putting the books away. He couldn't help but be amused at his friend's dilemma.

"-I swear if I don't get out of here they'll both be dead. Either that or I'll find some way of suffocating her with her own annoying pink gum-"

"That's still killing them," Sasuke was smiling now, highly amused.

"You better remember that we're meeting at the mall tonight. I am not going into that bookstore alone." The message clicked off on that cheery note, leaving the apartment in silence. Sasuke allowed himself a laugh and just shook his head, finishing up with the books.

Gaara hated going alone in to the school book store at the mall, due to another girl in his life by the name of Sakura. She was one of those college graduates who could never seem to leave the town of the life she'd managed to carve out for herself there, either from her own preference, or because the world around her just wasn't willing to accept a perfectly normal girl who just decided she looked better with candy pink colored hair.

Sasuke remembered distinctly, back a couple years ago when Sakura had been in one of his classes and had nearly lead the little stampede of girls that Gaara teasingly called his fanclub. Most of them had been annoying, screaming and squealing girls who fawned over him and begged for dates or even glances in their general direction. They were the source of his high stress level on days like Valentine's Day or any of the dances that the college clubs decided to throw, not to mention the cultural festivals – basically any event where it was appropriate to show up with a date. Every one of them wanted to be on Sasuke's arm and Sasuke actually remembered channeling Gaara's seeming homicidal nature more then once in his own thoughts about them.

She'd been one of those, though much higher educated due to her area of scientific and medical studies. Luckily for Sasuke she'd started the year as one of them and grown out of her little obsession after about a year in a half. Now her little obsession seemed to be aimed at Gaara, but Sasuke suspected it was mostly because Gaara reacted to it so easily. In fact, that one time that Sakura had actually dared to sneak up on Gaara and kiss him on the cheek was the only time in the world he'd ever seen the goth boy blush. And he never let him forget it.

Sasuke leaned down and grabbed one of the empty boxes, tossing it over by the pile which was slowly growing by his front door. That was the last box in the living room, and now was the time to tackle the bedroom.

When he stepped in the bedroom, the first thing that popped into his mind was an image of the boy sitting on his bed, soaking the sheets with blood and giving him a look with that eerie little grin. It made Sasuke pause in his steps, but he managed to push it away and felt rather stupid when he stepped into the room to find nothing abnormal about it… save for the small dots of brown blood now staining his sheets.

Taking a deep breath he walked over to the bed and yanked off the sheets. The action sent the notebook flying out of the bed, and it landed open on the floor, turned so he could read the page.

_Naruto is lonely._

Sasuke winced and forced himself to look away from it, pulling the sheets into a large pile in his hand. His mind wandered as he left the room, heading down to the basement to throw them into the laundry.

Why had that boy been so cut up like that? He'd seen movies and read books about ghosts looking the way they did when they died, but wasn't that a bit severe? And the wounds still bleeding made him seem more alive… more real…

Sasuke blinked, finding himself standing back in his bedroom, looking down at the notebook. Putting the sheets in the wash and starting up the machine, plus climbing the stairs had passed in a blur and now he found himself in a room full of boxes which were half unpacked, with a scribbled in, blood stained notebook laying at his feet.

He knew what he should be doing.

He knew that he should be unpacking.

He knew he shouldn't be picking up that pencil.

He knew he shouldn't be sitting down with that notebook.

And he knew he shouldn't be writing…

_Naruto is lonely._

_Naruto is lonely because Naruto is dead._

_Naruto is a boy who appeared in my room, covered in blood which stains anything he touches. Naruto is covered in cuts, sliced across his skin and covering everywhere, cut to pieces but still staying together. Naruto is stained in blood and yet still moving._

_Naruto appeared in my room last night. There's still blood on the bed._

Sasuke sighed and rolled over on his bed, going back to writing in a more frantic manner, as if he can't help but keep writing.

_I don't understand any of this. I found his name in my room last night, under the wallpaper by the light, but now that I look there's nothing there and the wall paper is perfectly fine. But I know it was there, I almost cut my finger on it and there's still a small white scratch that's fading away. And I tried to tell Gaara, but that didn't really help, because I wouldn't even believe such a thing myself without seeing it._

_Then last night, in the middle of the night he woke me up, sitting at the edge of my bed. He was bleeding and grinning and I couldn't stand the sight, I couldn't take it. Of all the things for me to do, I lost consciousness._

_What exactly is he? He looks human enough, save for the fact that he's cut to pieces and bleeding all over. He was even grinning in a creepy fashion, just watching me and I can't get his blood stained blue eyes out of my head. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop wondering how he died, or what happened to him. What is he doing he…_

_Naruto is lonely._

_Naurto is all alone._

_Naruto was left alone._

_Naruto doesn't want to be alone anymore._

_I don't want to be alone anymore._

_I don't want to be alone anymore._

_I don't want to be alone anymore._

_I don't want_

Sasuke jerked back and threw the pen across the room, kicking away the notebook in a sharp motion and pressed himself back against the wall so quickly that it hurt.

What in the world was that! He just couldn't stop writing that same sentence. Over and over and over again until it had started to cover the entire page.

His hand shook from clutching the pen so hard and he just couldn't take his eyes off the notebook and the red pen which was now leaking into the carpet, much like how Naruto had stained the sheets.

What the hell was going on?


	6. Chapter 6

My Life  
Author: Snow Tigra  
Series: Naruto  
Rating: R  
Pairing: SasukexNaruto  
Summary: Sasuke has found the perfect place to move into the summer before his senior year in college. But there's a name hidden under the wallpaper in the bedroom, and the house isn't exactly his.  
Warnings: AU

Chapter 5

The sheets were cold.

That was his first thought.

Sheets that freshly came out of the dryer were supposed to be soft and warm and comforting, like a mother's embrace or a father's lighthearted laugh – or so the commercials always said. Freshly cleaned sheets were synonymous with fleece blankets, teddy bears, warm fires and lollipops. They were supposed to be clean and comforting.

These sheets were cold. Cold and thin and even though Sasuke could feel the warmth he couldn't seem to grasp it and it just faded away, leaving him alone, bare… unprotected.

He didn't know how long he lay in the bed, just staring at the wall beside him. His back was turned to the room after much debate, but he'd finally decided that the only way he could sleep is if he were facing the wall and not able to see anything that just happened to appear around him. The safest thing to do was to stare at the wall and wait for sleep to appear and take him away.

Sleep was late.

Perhaps even a no-show.

The silence of the room surrounded him, the air becoming thick with it and coarse, as if he were actually trying to breathe something solid instead of something fluid that you never even really felt unless you were panicked or scared. He could hear various sounds from the house settling, and water dripping from the used washer machine in the small excuse for a basement. His computer was turned off and there was an owl outside, all these small noises echoing in the thick silence, seeming to grow louder around him.

His mind went to the notebook.

He could write… that would calm him down, wouldn't it?

Sasuke clasped his hands together under the sheet and tried to curl closer to the wall, nearly pressing his nose against it. He was past worrying about what was wrong with himself, always thinking about the notebook, and was now just set on surviving the night without touching it. Surely if he lay in bed long enough sleep would appear and he'd be carried off. That's what his mother had always told him as a child… lay down and close your eyes, you'll fall asleep eventually.

_Naruto is lonely._

Sasuke shuddered and closed his eyes tighter.

_Naruto._

_Naruto._

_Naruto._

Sasuke's body began to shake and he could feel the silence rushing over him like a hard ocean wave, as if it threatened to drown him. He couldn't hear the other small sounds anymore, just the repeated word in his head.

_Naruto._

_Naruto._

_Naruto._

_Naruto._

"Sasuke."

Sasuke's eyes snapped open and he held his breath. Had he really heard that? Had he heard someone whisper his name? But that couldn't be right. There was no one else in the room except…

The thick smell of blood filled Sasuke's nose and the world seemed to freeze around him. Now, even the silence became deafening and his eyes widened as he just stared at the blank wall, his mind willing it to become a mirror so he wouldn't need to turn around. He didn't want to turn around and see. He didn't want to see what he knew now was right behind him.

He could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up in warning, shivers sliding down his spine like an icy cold skeleton hand trying to entice him to turn. His own breathing was forced, his mind forgetting how to breathe as he heard the sounds of someone else in the room behind him, breathing softly and he swore he could even hear the sound of the blood slowly sliding down that boy's skin as it soaked the carpet and blankets around him. The matrices moved and Sasuke suppressed the urge to make a scared sound, knowing the thing was now behind him.

A hand, wet with blood that soaked his shirt right through to his skin, lightly grasped his shoulder. The blood was warm. Warm like it was from a real body.

Weren't ghosts supposed to be cold?

Sasuke swallowed and slowly turned over, rolling on to his back. Somehow, the feeling of the boy's hand on his shoulder and the warm blood worked to calm his mind down. Ghosts were supposed to be cold, and demons… well, hadn't he heard they were supposed to smell like sulfur or something like that? They didn't have warm hands and warm blood. This was real. And something that was real… didn't seem quite so scary.

As he turned on the bed, he felt the blood there soak into the back of his shirt. Sasuke turned completely, laying down on his back and looking up at the thing sitting next to him, his body remembering how to breathe and his mind no longer panicking.

Naruto said nothing, but rather just watched him with the same twisted grin from the night before. Blood slowly slid down his skin from the hundreds of cuts and his red stained blue eyes just watched Sasuke, as if he weren't able to speak, only to watch without blinking.

Sasuke slowly sat up, watching Naruto's hand slide from his shoulder and move to just sit on the bed.

"You're… Naruto." Sasuke said softly, his own voice somehow managing to come out without shaking or choking.

The grin on Naruto's face just widened as he slowly kneeled down in front of Sasuke. His motions were fluid, flowing slowly just like the blood over his skin. He lowered down to his knees then crawled toward Sasuke, moving so slow he barely even seemed to move, until he was right there, only a breath away.

Sasuke could almost taste the coppery smell of the blood on his tongue from him being so close. He didn't move back, but instead just watched him, not sure what else to do. He had to admit the initial fear of the situation was wearing off. Apparently one could only see a ghost so many times before not being scared anymore, especially when this ghost honestly didn't seem that threatening. After all, how much could a name on a wall, a notebook and blood stained sheets hurt you?

For the longest time the two of them just sat there, not doing anything. Sasuke watched the ghost boy and the boy watched him back, the grin never leaving his face. Silence filled the room, punctuated only occasionally by the sound of blood dripping against the sheets as it rolled off his skin. Then the ghost boy leaned forward and did the last thing Sasuke ever expected.

They kissed.

Sasuke could remember the last time he'd kissed someone, and it had been done more as a duty then anything else, the ending to a date he knew he'd never go out on again. Girls expected kisses at the end of dates so he was happy to get her off his back and do just that, then walk away and never answer his phone again. That kiss had been quick, cold and a simple touching of lips that really did nothing at all. That wasn't this kiss.

This kiss was cool, but in a chilling way. The kind of feeling that happened when you bit down on ice and for a moment there's a rush of cold through your teeth, before its gone and you find another piece to chew on. Lips touched lips and a chill sped through Sasuke, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. It was cold, and coppery… and thick.

He knew there was blood in his mouth, he could feel it slowly over his tongue, but it didn't bother him. He could feel it dripping on him and sliding over his skin from how close Naruto was, but it didn't bother him. All he really cared about was the small feeling that rushed through him as he kissed back and the oddly good feeling chill that slowly slid over his body.

Since when were ghosts solid? Weren't you supposed to be able to walk through them? Touching was impossible… so kissing just had to be right?

Sasuke let his eyes slide shut as he felt the boy's hand brush against his cheek, touching him for a moment before it slid down to his shoulder in a soothing motion. He returned the kiss without hesitation, enjoying it. Who cared if it was a ghost he was kissing? He was enjoying it.

The hand rested on his shoulder and Sasuke felt Naruto's other hand do the same, then they slowly began to press him against the wall as he made the kiss deeper. At first there was nothing wrong with it and Sasuke actually enjoyed the slight restraint… but a person could only kiss before so long before he needed to breathe.

Blood started to slide down his throat from the kiss and he coughed a bit, or rather attempted to. The ghost boy didn't pull back, in fact he actually pressed him tighter against the wall, trying to kiss him deeper.

In a split second Sasuke's mind dropped back into panic. He could barely breathe. His nose wasn't covered, but the ability to breathe while being kissed was still hampered by his own sensations and his panicked mind. He needed air and he needed air now… and that's exactly what the ghost seemed intent on keeping from him.

Sasuke brought up his hands, struggling completely against the kiss now, or as much as he was able to. His panicked mind raced as he pushed at the ghost boy, his hands slipping over the wet skin, then he actually began clawing at him, probably adding to the marks across his skin. He choked, trying desperately to breathe and pull away, twisting his body and trying to loosen the grip, but it only seemed to grow tighter and the walls seemed to shrink around him.

He couldn't breathe. He could barely move. He couldn't get away. It held him in place and it kept kissing him, blood dripping down is throat now as he tried desperately to even cough or choke it out. His eyes were open, but his sight blurred, only able to see a dark splash of red soaked blond.

He couldn't get free.

He couldn't breathe.

And the ghost boy just kept kissing him, pinning him into the wall tight enough to hurt, until his world blacked out and his raw throat gave up trying to seek air.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 6 

Sasuke woke up that night lying in the middle of the floor in his room. A more correct word would be sprawled as his one leg was twisted under his desk his head had obviously met the corner of the dresser as he could feel a cut on his cheek with blood. Sasuke tried to move and immediately began coughing, his throat waking up and demanding the air it had been denied when he…

He immediately stopped coughing and sat up, looking around the room for the ghost boy… but the room was empty. Nothing moved around him, and the only evidence of what had to have happened a couple hours ago was the smeared blood stained sheets and dark drip marks on the wall which perfectly matched the coppery taste in Sasuke's mouth. He couldn't help but shudder as he pulled himself to his feet and managed to make it out of the room, nearly collapsing into the bathroom as he was blinded by the bright florescent light.

The tile against his skin was a welcome shock, not at all like the dead coolness of the ghost boy's skin. This was cool porcelain and it was comforting, the way leaning one's forehead against the bathroom wall seemed to make stress disappear. Sasuke stumbled into the tub and just lay there against the chilled white stone, letting the shocking yet soothing feeling seep into his skin before he resolved to move again. Slowly stripping he began running the warm water and set out a towel for a shower.

Warm water was best for waking one up in the morning or occasionally washing away sleepiness for the day's worth of homework and classes. But he wanted more then that now, so the steam rose around him in the bathroom as he let the water rush around him and across his body in nearly burning hot torrents, forcefully washing away whatever he might be able to feel leftover from that thing which had visited in his room. It was soothing in a shocking way, much like the cold bathroom walls, and he couldn't help but close his eyes and finally sigh in relief as the water washed away the feeling of blood and uneasiness. It seemed there wasn't anything in the world that a scalding hot shower couldn't fix.

For a long moment he managed to completely block out his mind, just reveling in the burning water that bounced and slid across his skin. Nothing could shake away a feeling like this, too bad he wasn't able to stay in the shower forever. That seemed like true heaven right about now.

After standing under the water and just enjoying it for what had to have been a good twenty minutes, Sasuke turned and finally pulled out the shampoo to use in his hair and completely relax himself. The scent of black cherry filled the room as he ran his fingers through his hair, sighing softly in relief, almost completely forgetting what he had been so worried about.

As he washed his hair the shower curtain beside him lifted just a little, brushing against his leg. Sasuke didn't open his eyes, passing it off as an effect of the cold air and warm air meeting and not getting along, it happened a lot in small bathrooms, didn't it?

The curtain moved again, this time sticking to his leg from the water and Sasuke frowned, reaching down to brush it away, but stopped as he saw red drip into the water swirling at his feet.

He was bleeding.

Sasuke frowned, turning over his hand, surprised to find a thin but deep cut spreading over the top of his hand, one he was sure hadn't been there before. As soon as his eyes spotted the cut, his brain reacted and it started to sting from the water and soap, causing him to hiss softly as he pressed his hand over it. Sasuke turned to reach for the water dial, to turn it off, when three more cuts appeared simultaneously across his arm, right above his wrist, immediately bleeding and burning as the water hit them. Sasuke jerked his hand back and stumbled back in the tub, out of the rushing water from the shower head.

He'd just seen that right, hadn't he? He'd brushed his arm against nothing, but three cuts had just sliced across his skin all by themselves. Sasuke didn't have to think too long before he assigned blame for it. It had to be the ghost boy. That was the only thing something as weird as this could be-

A small cry escaped his throat as three more cuts sliced into his lower thigh, causing Sasuke to stumble in pain. He managed to just barely catch himself on the soap holder and stay standing, but that didn't last long as three more crossed his chest and he felt another set sting on the other side of his neck.

Something was cutting him!

Sasuke's mind began to drop into a panic again and he turned, but more cuts bit into his ankle and he couldn't keep his standing. He fell to the floor, yelling out in pain as the back of his head knocked against the side of the tub hard enough to leave a large bruise. Moving his feet and trying to ignore the now painfully hot water he turned off the faucet and grasped the shower curtain to stand back up and get out of the tub. The sounds of ripping plastic and metal shower hooks clicking together filled the bathroom as the wet plastic slid down on top of him, his panicked mind realizing a moment later that you couldn't grab something like that to help you stand up, there's no way it could support anyone's weight.

He pushed the plastic away, more cuts appearing over his arms now, as he struggled to sit up and breathe. As soon as the plastic was no longer blocking his vision, the light in the bathroom snapped out, drowning him in silent darkness.

Sasuke froze, his eyes moving around the dark room, trying desperately to grab onto a shape to verify where exactly he was. His mind knew he was in the bathroom, sitting painfully in the bathtub, slick and wet with his own blood, but he just couldn't accept that. His mind was too panicked to believe it and refused to believe he was anywhere but a haunted hell until his eyes proved otherwise.

The cuts stung and his skin grew cold as he could feel the blood running over his skin. Much like the boy.

Exactly like Naruto.

Sasuke couldn't help but curl up in the back of the tub, practically begging his eyes to adjust to the light and at least see a couple blurry shapes. Anything. Just anything.

As if answering him, the light in the bathroom snapped back to life, filling the room with a blinding light and an audible pop. For a moment all Sasuke could see was white, then the room slowly came into focus again… but matters didn't improve.

Standing in front of Sasuke, dressed in a pair of dark blue jeans and a loose red shirt with a high neck, was a boy with exactly his height and exactly his hair. It was him, head to toe, a perfect replica. Right down to the eyes and the scar on his arm from that one time he and his brother had gotten a bit too rough with some outdoor sport. There was only one difference on the face, and it was the one that chilled him to the bone, making him momentarily forget completely how to breathe.

The 'Sasuke' in front of him was staring back at him with Naruto's creepy, long and twisted grin. It twisted from were his mouth should be up one side of his face, looking deformed in its shape and curve, almost as if someone had cosmetically made their mouth larger just to look creepier to the human eye.

It was effective.

The world around Sasuke seemed to start shaking as he stared up at himself, and only a moment later did he realize he was trembling with fear. He wasn't bleeding anymore, but he was scared shitless and out of his mind. What the hell was going on! Why was this 'thing' moving toward him?

He watched the thing in front of him slowly lean forward and a hand outstretched toward him, as if it honestly believed Sasuke would allow such a thing to help him stand. Then the mouth moved, twisting even more past its inhuman shape in the attempt to form words. The voice that escaped grated against his ears painfully like sandpaper over his skin and it took all of Sasuke's power to not cower and whimper more from the voice.

"I am Sasuke."

The words echoed around the room and the light snapped out, shattering above him with glass shards flying around the room, a couple hitting him. Sasuke ducked into the tub, trying to make himself smaller as his fear came out. He couldn't stop shaking as he felt the tub begin to fill up.

The drain must have been clogged because he could feel the liquid around him slowly rising. But it didn't feel like water… it was thicker, warmer and a sickening copper smell filled the air. Sasuke knew the tub was somehow filling with his blood, even though it wasn't possible for a human body to contain that much, but he couldn't move.

Fear wrapped around him like a suffocating blanket full of pins and needles, and it was all he could do to keep breathing. He knew if he didn't move he was going to drown in his own blood and that sadistic little ghost boy was going to be laughing about it. But he just couldn't make himself move. The minute he stepped out of the tub, he knew something new was going to happen, and he just couldn't deal with it. So instead his mind just seemed to shut off, and Sasuke sat quietly in the darkness, feeling the blood around him and the complete silence.

_Sasuke._

_Sasuke._

_Sasuke._

_Sasuke is alone._

_Sasuke is alone._

_Sasuke is alone._

_Sasuke is scared._

_Sasuke is alone._

_Sasuke is scared._

_Sasuke is alone._

_Sasuke will always be alone_.


	8. Chapter 8

Title: My Life  
Author: Snow Tigra  
Series: Naruto  
Rating: R  
Pairing: SasukexNaruto  
Summary: Sasuke has found the perfect place to move into the summer before his senior year in college. But there's a name hidden under the wallpaper in the bedroom, and the house isn't exactly his.  
Warnings: AU 

Chapter 7

Someone was in his house.

He could hear the door open from the basement where he lay under the house, watching the lower end of the torn insulation and floorboards. He could hear the door open and the screen door squeak, slamming shut behind it as the rusty spring ached with age. He could hear the foot steps cross the floor and the worn carpet, weaving around furniture and boxes. He could hear a voice speak before knocking on the bedroom door.

Someone was in his house.

Without his permission.

He moved, raising up to sit and then to stand. Ignoring the stairs and ignoring the floor and simply ignoring the laws of matter he stood up and slid through the floor, stepping on his own stairs to the main floor of the house and looked around for the intruder.

He wasn't welcome here.

He found the intruder standing outside the bedroom door, knocking on the door and carrying on a conversation with the occupant inside. He was saying something about classes and sleep and the time of day, all things that were really not important to his ears, so he didn't even bother hearing the words. Instead he just stood there, glaring at the intruder.

You aren't welcome.

The boy's hand stopped knocking on the door and he could see his cheekbones shift as a frown crossed his face. A moment later his head turned and he looked around the house, his unseeing eyes passing right over exactly what he was looking for. Well of course the intruder couldn't see the truth, after all, this wasn't his house.

You aren't welcome.

He watched as the unwelcome boy scanned the room, a hesitant look on his face, almost as if he could sense or feel that thought, but not actually hear it. His eyes wandered back to the bedroom, but he abandoned whatever thought he was having and walked into the living room instead, looking for something he was never going to be able to see.

The intruder seemed familiar.

Short hair, cut unevenly so it spiked from his head. Dark clothing that was a mismatch of blacks and dark reds, never whites if he could help it. Dark green eyes that honestly didn't care about most things in the world. A tattoo on his forehead, a very odd place for one his age.

He stopped and frowned. He was an intruder… so why did he know his name?

Gaara.

No, that wasn't right. It didn't matter who the intruder was, he was in his house! He wasn't welcome here! No one was welcome in his house! Not even the…

Boy who had just moved in.

In that moment, with that single thought, it all seemed to come back. First just small flashes, tiny glimpses of memory.

Door. Boxes. Signing. Unpack. Notebook. Wallpaper. Notebook. Blood. Notebook.

Then the small glimpses turned to flashes. Bright flashes of memory, painful in their intensity and nearly enough to send him staggering to his knees with how it all came in. For a moment he was back on that bed being suffocated. For a moment he was back in his room, scared out of his mind. And for a moment he was back in the bathtub, crying out as something invisible cut him in the darkness.

Sasuke spun around, moving through the living room as fast as he could. He turned the corner and crossed the small excuse for a hallway into the bedroom, only to stop cold in his tracks and watch… himself.

Sitting in his bed, wearing his clothes and talking to his former roommate was himself. Sasuke could see himself sitting on the bed with the same sleep ruffled hair he had to deal with every morning, wearing the same jeans and dark t-shirt he'd considered wearing last night. And he could hear his own voice talking with Gaara about plans for the day and a need to get out of the house, as if nothing were wrong and everything were perfectly normal.

What the hell was going on?

"I am Sasuke."

Sasuke felt a sickening feeling in his stomach as he remembered the words from last night, from that one moment he'd seen himself standing outside of the bathtub and reaching out for him. Such a thing couldn't be possible… but then nothing that had happened in this house in the last couple of days could be possible. His suspicions were only confirmed when the Sasuke sitting on his bed met his eyes for a second, and flashed a light, bloodstained blue.

Sasuke stumbled back out of the doorway, nearly tripping on his own feet as he somehow managed to make his way into the bathroom. He barely managed to catch the sink as his balance spun around him, the world seeming to toss and turn, determined to toss him off. The air felt sandy in his mouth, tearing his throat as he tried to reign in his panic and get control of himself. It didn't help that for a moment he could see how much blood had filled the bathroom the night before. Dripping from the walls and surrounding the bathtub, ringing it as a dark stain that would never wash away no matter how hard one tried. Sasuke slid down to his knees on the floor, gripping at the small carpet in front of the toilet.

What the hell was happening to him?

He'd woken in the basement to the sound of Gaara coming into the house. He'd been downstairs, but he'd heard the door open as if it had been right next to his ear. All the sounds in the house filled his ears, no matter where he stood. He didn't have to think to know that Gaara was now heading for the door and the other Sasuke was following him. He knew every inch of the house and he could feel them walking over the floor like a fly moving over his arm.

He was the house.

Sasuke shuddered and abandoned the rug in favor of hugging himself tightly.

That was impossible. How was he a part of the house? How was he able to feel every floor board, every creaking wall, every loose shingle. The more he thought about it the more the sounds of the house seemed to scream at him, telling him their every moment and action. It was like a part of his body, every single piece and part, and it was overwhelming in the feelings. The human body wasn't meant to handle this! How was he supposed to handle this? How could he make it stop!

"It doesn't stop."

Sasuke looked up in surprise, the house quieting for him, but only slightly, as he focused his attention on the doorway to the bathroom. Standing in front of him was the fake Sasuke, the one who'd been sitting in his bed and wearing his clothes and talking to his friend.

"It doesn't ever stop. You can't stop it no more then you can cut off your own limbs." A smirk crossed the familiar yet stolen face. "I've tried."

"Who are you?" Sasuke's own voice felt weak, torn. It didn't sound like himself, but more like a scratchy wind, the kind that teases of a storm on its way, barely hinting with the softest sound.

"I am Sasuke." The smirk grew, twisting across his face, lifting up one side. Sasuke couldn't help but shudder.

"Naruto. You're Naruto."

The smirk grew more, grotesquely large again on his face and once again his eyes flashed to the bloody light blue. "I was."

Sasuke stood up, glaring at him. "You can't do this! I'm Sasuke! You can't just step in here and steal my life!"

"And who said you could come in here and move into my house? Who gave you permission to come in here and take over! This isn't your place! It's mine! You want it so bad then fine!" The smile crossed his face again. "Now it's yours."

"I… I don't want this…" Sasuke's voice sounded weak to his ears, his fear showing through. He didn't mean to sound so scared and had one asked who knows how long ago he would have denied that it could ever happen. But now that the situation was presented to him he was petrified and his mind just couldn't deal with it what was happening.

The thing in front of him just kept grinning. "Too bad. I'm going to go have fun with my new friend now. In fact… I think I'll take him up on that offer of being his roommate." The grin faded, melting around the edges until it became a dark and almost deadly looking glare. "I hate this house."

But it wasn't Sasuke's voice that said those words.

Echoed through the air, Sasuke could hear what sounded like thousands of voices echoing the exact same words in different pitches, tones and even a couple languages.

"I hate this house."

Sasuke's head hurt and spun and he closed his eyes out of habit, shirting his feet as if he actually needed to catch his footing. A second later he opened his eyes… and he was alone.

His mind panicked and he bolted out of the bathroom, not even noticing when he ended up running practically through a wall in his haste, the air around him feeling like jelly for a split second, but otherwise he passed through like any other ghost-like creature would. Still he reached the edge of the house walls, only to be stopped by something else.

Sasuke found himself standing at a window, his eyes looking out at the small lawn and the road beyond, where Gaara stood waiting with a bus ticket in hand and his ever present bored look. Sasuke could see himself, his body which was now stolen by Naruto, crossing the lawn, hurrying to catch up with him and talking as if it were nothing. But he couldn't pass the window…

He couldn't leave the house.

He would never leave the house.


	9. Chapter 9

Title: My Life  
Author: Snow Tigra  
Series: Naruto  
Rating: R  
Pairing: SasukexNaruto  
Summary: Sasuke has found the perfect place to move into the summer before his senior year in college. But there's a name hidden under the wallpaper in the bedroom, and the house isn't exactly his.  
Warnings: AU 

Epilogue

The sound outside the window was different today. Raising up he could hear the birds outside singing their annoyingly repeated songs and cars driving by as they sped off to work or class. Nothing changed over the years and when one stopped to realize it, nothing had really changed since this place had been built. The morning sounds were always the same and the days blended together into monotony, leaving one to even wonder if the calendar with the old wrinkled pages was correct.

But then what good was a calendar when you couldn't turn the pages?

But today, there was a new sound. The new sound of a car pulling close to his house and the doors opening accompanied by voices. He heard a key insert into his lock and the door swung open, squeaking slightly on the hinges from disuse.

He was standing in the living room, watching them with a cool and calculated glare, willing them to leave him in peace, but of course they couldn't see him. Instead the two girls stepped into the house and chatted quickly about what they would do with the place and all the belongings left behind.

He tried to remember, but he couldn't even remember the name of the boy who'd been in his house last. Only that he'd left suddenly, never coming back for his things… perhaps he was scared away in to leaving where he didn't belong. Least that's what he liked to thing had happened. In reality it didn't matter, as long as those who weren't welcome were gone.

So why wouldn't these two leave?

The two girls cross out of the living room and slit up, one going into the single bedroom and the other into the kitchen. He followed the one into the bedroom, boring holes into the back of her head as she looked around the room at the belongings.

He remembered, in bits and pieces, what had happened in the time before. The last time someone had come into his house and had stayed without being welcome. How long had it been? How many years?

The girl was wearing a letterman's jacket, or whatever they called them now, supporting her local college team which probably was the team her boyfriend played on. That's how college girls used to act, so he was reasonably sure that the year on her jacket wasn't more then a couple years off…. And if that was correct then only a handful of years had passed since the other had left him here.

The one who'd been part of this house before him.

It was at that moment that an idea began to form around the name that seethed with hatred in his mind.

Naruto.

Naruto was now posing with his name.

Sasuke.

He couldn't help but smirk, feeling the abnormally large expression take up most of his cut and blood stained face.

If it worked for Naruto… why couldn't it work for him?

Why couldn't he… take this girl's body and go find the one who sentenced him to this horrible curse?

The girl stopped, her eyes falling on the bed and an item that laid there. Kneeling down she reached for the notebook and opened it.

The notebook was empty, save for a single word scrawled in the cover.

"Sasuke? Who is… Sasuke?"

The End


End file.
